ZX Appeal

FEB-MAR/88

ZXAppeal is a monthly
newsletter put out by the

Vancouver Sinclair Users Group.

For more information on the

group and ZXAppeal see the backcover.

Feature Report

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THISISSUE eee eae 2
BIS&PIEICEF. 2
MEET DATE 3
V IPREZ SAY Soinia 3
JAN MEET MINUTES........... 4
FEB MEET MINUTEB............ 5
260 BEVIEI 7
PORIN” AROUOND.....u..:.-2000--.. ô
ZX-TERM EXCHANGE........... 9
SIR CLIVE INTERVIEW....10
HEADER HACKER................. 12
ADVER DA a 12
PR ed 13
"THE CLONES iici 14
PROFT EE: -iioii aiis 15
THE ULTIMATE.............0..... 16

HARDWARE PROJECT........17
VAPOURWARE.....................20

THIS LSSUB 26 cc cc

As we arise fron our winter
hibernation we come upon another
issue of our trusty newsletter. I

hope you took advantage of the quiet
of winter to get in some_ solid
undisturbed computin’. Maybe
getting a handle on that word

processor or beating your favourite

game.
I knew it - take a month off
grumbling about the lack of material
and more good stuff turns up than
might fit in one issue: Ever
prolific Fred Nachbaur sent in a
whole bunch of great items. Fred

tells us about the "ZX Term Exchange”

on the NNN. Also his “Ultimate
Orphan", his Member Profile, and
finally a surprise gift for all the

members. Speaking of Profiles, Chung
Chow gives us his also. Sir/Uncle
Clive stops by with an interview on
how he sees the -future and we also
have a review of the Z88, Clive“s
latest. Doug Jeffery sent in a
really helpful article on just
“Poking Around". Tim Stoddard gives
us a NEAT hardware project for the
ZX81 - a REAL TIME CLOCK. Bill
Rutter advises novice Hackers on the
fine points of program hacking. And
what issue would be complete without
one of Harveys “Playing With...”
gems. All this and if space allows,

a lot more.
KK KK KK KK EK EE RK KK KK RK KK KEK KK KK KK KK RR KK

Last issue I raised the question of
whether our group could produce
enough material to sustain a monthly

newsletter or would it be better to
go to a bi-monthly format to retain
a quality newsletter. I received

little feedback from members at large

but I did get some that caused me to
see this question from another
perspective. That is “What ís the

real purpose of the newsletter?” The
newsletter should tell the ‘members
the latest news and happenings, the
minutes of the last meeting, and the
date of the next. With that
main objective of this endevour were

going back to a monthly format. This
will probably mean the newsletter
will be skinny one month and,
hopefully, fatter the next.

RRK KK KE KK RK RK KK KK KK KEKE KE KK RK KEKE KEKE

as the -

2

BITS :& PIECE S..02 ctw clcs cece woes nia s

---word is that another publication
is starting up. QL USA will be
devoted to the QL and is said to be
aimed at the full range of users -
novice to hacker. That“s the second
publication to be launched in the
last while. 2068 UP-DATE skippered
by VSUG member Bill Jones is off to a
strong start. 2068 UP-DATE is
primarily for users with disc mass
storage — all formats, but would also
be very interesting and useful to all
users. Bill has committed to putting
out a year of quarterly issues and
will only then take a look at the
balance sheet. These guys are taking
the gamble on US so let“s back“em up!
...it can be reported that Dan Elliot
offers and provides a first class
service. Dan was sent two Memotech
Centronic printer interfaces for
repair. It was said these things
were a nightmare to even attempt a
repair on. Dan had them both back
fully operational in no time. He even
refunded a portion of the repair fee
- said he was sent TOO MUCH! Dan is
presently dickering with Portugal on
a bulk buy of SCLD chips. He wants

to sell half the order to recoup his
costs and hold the balance for
repairs. He“ll contact us when the
time is right.

...Electronic Surplus Inc., 1224
Prospect Ave., Cleveland, OH,
216-621-1052, has a really super
bargain going: a 1500 plus a 2040
printer for $30.00US. This is half
the price advertised by American
Design in the back of Computer
Shopper. They take plastic over the
phone. l

.. ¿apparently a 1000 and Memotech
RS232 interface combo will allow

hookup with a 1200 baud modem.

...Bill Harmer of the Ottawa Support
Unit has just completed some very
interesting software for the 1000:

Helpmate I combines a word processor,
adding machine, calculator, columnar
pad, and memo/note database.

... Jack Dohany of Jack”“s.Fairware
fame has a new catalog out. Jack
reports he is taking a year off from
his regular source `of income so he
can devote himself fulltime to his
ever expanding stable of wondrous
programs for the . 2068. Anyone
interested in seeing Jacks catalog
just ask at the meeting. Well get a

chance to meet with Jack at the
Portland “Fest in August as he“ll be
coming up from Ca.

---Clifford & Grey still offer 5
modem boards for $15.00US. These
boards are without cable but area
good source of repair parts or better
yet don’t repair the old board — just
put the old cable on the new board.
The large blueprint schematic of the
2068 makes a great wall poster when
laminated. z
«--VSUG Member Ian Robertson reports
hearing of a SPECTRUM clone: 32K ROM,
128K of bank-switched memory, proper
keyboard, and maybe BETA BASIC as the
O/S, all run by a Z80B @ 6mhz. What
goes round, comes round!

.. Broadway Computing at Broardway
and Fraser has the Admate DSY-80
daisy wheel printer for $199.00.
This printer is a beauty - fast and
quiet. Hook up and run on the QL
without doing anything - just turn it
on and print in perfect letter

quality. Weer weer Feebue S TRACTOK Fees!
KA KK RK KK ER KR EK RK RK EK KK EK kk kk kk kk kk kkk

RENEWING MEMBERS:

Bob Dick, Harry Slot

Dan Pinko, Marcio Vieira
Bob Denison, Doug Jeffery
George Pattison, Bill Jones

NEW MEMBERS:

Tim Woods, Colton, Oregon
Ken Davis, Vancouver, B.C.

IF YOU GET THE DREADED EXPIRY NOTICE
BE SURE TO RENEW AT THE MEETING.

MARCH 7 88

[Eon ron] roe] uen rno] rea] onr]

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From your Vice-Prez.....

As a computer owner/user, I place
myself in the large group that
simply wish to use the most-suitable
and cheapest combination of software
and hardware available to do some
specific task, which for me usually
involves spread sheets or word
processing programs with the
occasional use of a data base.

I will admit that my knowledge
of electronics is limited to
changing light bulbs, that I
couldn’t tell a resistor from a
capacitor even if one chased the
other up a tree, and that I have
never owned a soldering iron in my
life.

Several years ago when I bought
my first computer, a TS1i000, I did
manage to learn and use a smattering
of BASIC because that was the way it
seemed things should be done in
those days. But I soon learned
there were others out there who
could produce far better programs
than I, and who were quite happy to
give them to you to use, or at least
sell them quite cheaply.

To use such programs, I may
have had to modify my way of
thinking and doing things, just as
my computer forced me to, but it was
still better than writing and
de-bugging them myself.

These attitudes have prevented
me from becoming “married” to any
one program or system, and when an
opportunity for something better has
come up that my wallet could handle,
I have taken it and “moth—balled” my
old stuff. i

Thus, when I spotted a new TS2086

at a good price at a flea market, I
bought it, soon acquired some
software for it, and retired my
TS1000. Similarly, when our club
organized the group purchase of the
QL kits, I ordered one Cwas pleased
to receive an assembled QL because
they had run out of kits), soon
acquired some software, and then
retired my TS2086.

The strength of our club is
based not only on the varied
experiences and abilities of its
members, but on the willingness of
each member to share knowledge with
others and to assist both other
members and the club in general.

My only strength is my use of
all three Sinclair systems, but that
has not prevented me from standing
as your Vice-President for the last
two years. I have been pleased to
give such assistance as I could to
our able President Ken, and to
assist the growth of our TS1000 and

2086 tape and book libraries even
though I’m currently a QL user only.

Ken has already announced that
he won’t be able to carry on as
President for another year. I must
tell you now that I cannot stand for
any position this year either.

I hope all of you will consider
your own experience and that some of
you will agree to fill these vacant
positions.

Remember, it’s your club and
the club is only what you help make
it.

88888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888

Minutes Jan 8/88

- by your humble scribe

The meeting opened at 19:23 sith
21 souls present; a couple
straggled in later. We were moved
to a new room by the folks at the
Community centre, but people seemed
to find their way with no problem.
There were no gymnastics overhead,
which was a bit of a relief.

Ken started off by telling us
that the San Francisco fair and the
Pacific North West computer fair
had been amalgamated into the Hest
Coast Computer Fair & is to held
Rug/88 in Portland, Oregon.

Ken was then looking for help
with xeroxing of the Pete Fisher
telecomm book. If anybody local fy
is able to help (or wants a copy)
contact Ken.

It seems the skytrain tour was a
washout. Five minutes before the
tour was scheduled to occur, there
was some unspecified emergency &
the control room was suddenly

particularly of the computing
variety. The tour is to be
rescheduled. The only times
available are 88:30 -> 16:08, so
some people won't be able to make
it. However Ken will be on the
blower to those on his list.
Gerd B. told us about a great new

motion that becuase of his
continuing support for the Sinclair
computer & his extra-ordinary level
of contributions to the club that
Fred Nachabur be given a free full
page ad in a future edition of
ZXAPPEAL. The rotion passed
unanimously.

Ken had come to the meeting
prepared to berate us for the
slovenly bunch of keyboard addicts
we are, as well as for never
bringing in our systems or doing
demos, but Harvey had brought his
QL &digitizer - so the berating
was delayed. Prepare your weary
nerves.

Instead Ken treated us to a
display of computer furniture a la
cheapskate. The next installment of
How to Deal with Computer Widows
turned out to be buy her a computer
of her own. To be continued.

Rusty, the UP, then had his kick
at the can flogging QL raffle
tickets & the SuncHlare News book.

He has a TS1008, he picked up at an
auction, for sale.

Ken had brought a Seiko wrist
watch/ computer which he showed to
those present. He also brought a
288 spec sheet which he passed
around

Rod Humphreys, Treasurer & Editor
emeritus, had laryngitis as a
result of the flu & consequently
his BOMBSHELL announcement went by

with little or no comment. Because
of a low level of contributions,
Z2XAPPEAL is going bi-monthly. See

the BBS discussion tacked on below.
Later on Rod told us we hae
$775.00 + 1 QL to our credit.

Ken then told us of the overhead
projection device he had seen. It
consisted of an LCD which went
where a transparency normally would
on an overhead projector & al lowed
on to put computer graphics/text on
the wall. Somone commented that at
US$148@.6@ and up it was just what
you needed for a $15.68 computer.

lan, the Ts 1000 librarian, stood
to say he was willing to do a demo,
but somebody would have to bring a
TU for him. There was then some
discussion of a couple of missing
Programs which he thought Fred N.
had donated, but there was some
question about their status & at
any rate Gerd has backups of
everything. They will work it out.

Bill, the 2868 librarian, told us
that a bunch of the Cleveland tapes
were unusable, with only a couple
of programs being salvageable on a
side. We have received tapes from
CATS < Capitol Area TS ) and
Toronto to bring our 2068 library
up to 43 tapes.

Kevin Kerney, the paper
librarian, couldn’t make it.

Harry Slot stood to tell us that
the Hardware SIG had been quiet
lately. At this point, it became
clear that Harry is the kind of
person who likes to be mysterious.
He told us that the Hardware SIG
was involved in a secret PC830@
project about which he could tell
us nothing. His eyes fairly danced.
Stay tuned. He also told us that he
had some 32K boards, pre-drilled
with instructions, which were going
for $15.66.

Ken Grant told us about frying
his Spectrum with 15 volts &
getting it repaired very quickly by

of Manchester, UK. Dave
Ross still has some Spectrum Roms &
Emulators which he wight be
persuaded to part with. lan is

Rod also made a statement about
ZXAPPEAL. He has come to the conclusion
that the newsletter should remain
monthly, just so that Knows
what is going on. Unless he is
with material, the newsletter will
likely be one month thin, one month
fat. There seemed to be general

. agreement that this was a good idea.
Now it is up to the membership to swamp

looking for a complete 2050 modem
board. Jim Horn told us about
working on Extended basic & Novram
machine language stuff.

At this point somebody € | don’t
remember who - sorry ) told us
about taking apart a digital
readout bathroom scale & finding a
single chip which read a rotating

spiral. Ken told us about seeing a Rod with so much material, that the

similar setup with an SP256 speech thin months don’t arrive.

chip attached - a clear marketing Rod was speaking recently with Dan

blunder. Elliot about a Centronics interface
Then Harvey demonstrated his which was giving him problems. At this

Imagewise video digitizer. He time the question of SCLD chips for the

digitized a group picture which
might turn up in these pages.

The meeting carried on informally
with wild abandon & great glee.

2068 came up & Dan mentioned he was
going to be buying 5@ or so. Rod is
collecting names of those interested in
getting an SCLD chip for US$26.@0. This
is, as you likely know, the only chip

not replaceable off the shelf in the
2068. Rod also mentioned for those
wondering, that the Tim Stoddard
16K->64K modification is still on.
Rusty, the UP, stood to tell us
The meeting started at 19:20 with that he had mags for sale yet
your humble scribe not present. This & 58 QL raffle tickets. He also
first paragraph is a result of some mentioned that there was a Croen Assets
notes Rod made. A new member Ken Davis Disposal sale upcoming in Richmond &
was made welcome. Mention was made of gave us a fine lesson in the niceties
the City Link party held Feb. 17/88. It of rigged bidding.
was noted that American Design Bill Rutter, the 2068 librarian, is
Computers are now selling the 1500 & running business as usual. Apparently

February 12/88 Minutes

-by your humble scribe

the 2846 for US$39.95 each. Ken, the very many of the Cleveland tapes are
prez for not much longer, also turning out to be unuseable becuase of
mentioned that next month are poor tape quality.

elections. To sweeten the coercion, lan Mclean, the 2X81 librarian,

coffe & donuts will be served. There/stood to tell us of his project to put
will also be a door prize of some all the past ZXAPPEAL topics in a
books. Come early & get elected! | database. There is note about this

There were 23 souls present when | iProject on Citylink [(64)222-268a1;
arrived to much fooforah. After the Room 6@@1: Board 12. Ii also want to
Cheering & jibes died down, Gerd B. mention that there is a Sinclair Files
stood to tell us about a letter from section on Frog Hollow (684>469-G2641.
Fred N. & read excerpts. Fred seems He needs to get a copy of early
pleased with his free ad. ZXAPPEALs to complete his database. He

Ken then told us about his coming is getting these from Rod H. Rod also
trip to China & reiterated the fact mentioned that the San Francsico user’s
that he was not going to stand for group has been keeping a similar

president again. database for ALL the Network
Rod stood to make his newsletters they get.

Edi tor /Treasurer’s report. He currently The question of getting access to

have approx. CAN$S2@.@@ in ye olde the many Network newsletters we receive

credit union. Rod H. told us about was raised. Rod H. is greatly concerned

speaking with Rod Gowen [RMG to not lose any issues, while several

Enterprises] about forthcoming Computer
Fest in Portland. Rod G. is looking for
speakers & he also explained some of
the trimmings this year. There will be
tours & clowns to amuse the
non-computing members of the family.
Affordable accomodations have been &
arranged. Reserve time on your calendar
in early August. Reportedly there will
be a sizeable contingent coming up from
California.

members felt they had no access. The
way it is set up at present, is that if
you want to read the newsletters of a
certain group, ask Rod & he will give
you that complete file.
Somebody mentioned the stock market
there was a lot of talk about
computerized trading & crashes & such.
The Hardware SIG rose & swore
undying love for the ZX81/TS1@@@. Then
little bits of Harry’s secrets began to

5

A

slip out. It looks like they are
working on a 256K Eprom/RAM Disk with
an Eprom burner for the PC8308. The
address space overlaps the onboard ROM
so it is possible to use a copy of Fred

N.’s Eprom in nonvolatile ram! The
system uses Wilf’s RDOS.
It appears that Ken is having

difficulty getting the Skytrain tour
together & what with gallavanting off
to China and all, it is in the REAL
SOON NOW category.

At this point, we were treated with
a speech synthesizer demo tape Ken had
recived from a California company. This
was aimed pr eula at the blind
heard the DECtalk

user.
— the ics
[US$3@0.081, the Votrax {[US$575.6@1,
and Echo [US$275.0@1. None of them did
Daisy.

The meeting ‘dissolved to general
mayhem & merriment.

Playing with Electricity
-Feb 21/88 by Harvey Taylor

This month | have a grab bag of
topics | have been meaning to get
around to. | have wanted to mention
the very excellent Scientific American
issue October /87 on the next
revolution in computers. There are
articles on Architectures, Mass
Storage, Networks, New chips etc. It
is well worth checking out. Also If
you are into 68xxx programming, there
is a good article in Byte Sept/86
called “68@@8 Trips & Traps". it has
lots of neat little 68xxx optimization
tricks. And just to give your
preconceptions the old heave ho, there
is an article in the Feb. /8s
Scientific American on plastics which
conduct electricity. The last book is
a reissue of Computer Lib / Dream
Hachines by Ted Nelson. This classic
first came out in the mid-seventies
& it is indicative of Nelson’s vision
that the book is still relevant. Check
it out!

In “QL SuperBasic, The Definitive
Handbook” by Jan Jones, who erote the
language & should know, there is a
really neat loading trick for the QL
described. Let us say you have a
downloaded basic program which does
not use line numbers, or one of those
copy_protected basic without line
numbers programs which you wish to
load. What you do is this.

On a reset machine, type AUTO &
press enter. This will invoke the
automatic fine numbering function of
the QL editor. You will be prompted
with 188 anda cursor. Now, [without
pressing <CTRL><SPACE>1, erase the 188
and type ‘LOAD <yourfilename>’ [ eg.
LOAD mdviAPRG@_bas I. The drive will

begin to run & after a bit you will be

prompted with a much higher line
number . At this point, hit
<CTRL><SPACE> to get out of AUTO & do

a listing. You will see the unnumbered
program all nicely numbered in your
listing. If there is a line which
superbasic does not like, there will
be the keyword NIlSTake immediately
after the line number. As Jan Jones
says, “Neat huh?’

Some time ago Rod H. published the
Savage benchmark program & gave some
2X8 1/2868 /QL results. At the time, |
told him I would SuperCharge the
program & post the results. The
straight QL time is im 25s and answer
of 2499.712. Incidentally, on the QL
it is possible to specify integer
variables by affixing % to the
variable name. If one does this to the
variable A in the listing, the result
is 2588 and the time is im 27s. A
supercharged version of the Savage
benchmark came up with a time of Gm
S8s and a result of 2499.71218.

choked on the integer
variable version.

i gota letter recently from a
chap in Calgary who was having trouble
hooking up a monitor to his QL. A lot
of monitors on the market, have
switches to allow it to accept either
positive going or negative going SYNC
signals. The problem arises when your
monitor does not have such a switch &
your QL puts out the wrong polarity of
signal. Hooking up a monitor which
requires positive going signals
involves using a simple inverter to
modify the QL signal.

SCROLL MOVE.L #UIDEORAN, AG
LEA (18*128A@, A1
MOVE.H =(32768/4)-1,08

SCR_LLOOP MOUE.L (AI, (RO)
DBRA DƏ, SCR_LOOP
RTS

*

* MOVEM METHOD

*

SCROLL MOVEL #UIDEORAN, RB
LEA € 10*128)A0, A1
MOVEQ #32,D1
MOVE.W #(32768/32)-1,D8

SCRLLOOP MOUEM.L (AG, DB-D7/Aa
MOVEN.L DB-07/A8, (AI?
ADD.L D1,Al
DBRA D8, SCR_LOOP

Please refer to the CONCEPTS
{Page 33] Section of your QL User's
Guide. There is a diagram there of the
Monitor connector on the back of your
QL (8 pin DIN). CSYNC is the
Horizontal Sync. By the way, there
are two kinds of 8 pin DIN connectors.
The QL uses the "B" style, (Armaco #
D08281).

This manual was written in the UK
& things are not all that they appear
to be. In particular, the Pin #1
(Composite PRL) is +5 volts. This can
be used as the power supply for the
chip. The Pin *2 (Ground) is used to
complete the power supply circuit.

The chip you will be using < a
74LS14 > consists of 6 Schmitt trigger
Inverters. Basically you take which
ever signal needs inverting ¢ HSYNC or
USYNC > and run it through the
inverter & hence to your monitor.

Meanwhile hooking up an ordinary
composite monitor is a piece of cake.
Just use Composite Video and ground. |
also have one of those 5° monitors
which requires seperate Sync signals.
inverting the Horizontal Sync with a
circuit similar to that discussed
above works like a chara.

Finally, I want to add an
optimized Scroll method which
illustrates a useful technique and
mindset. Using the Novem method cuts
down the cycles/byte by 4.375. On a
screen of 32K this can amount to
4.375 * 133*10E-9 * 32768 = .1986 sec.

All of the cycle times are listed
in the back of the 68888 programmer's
reference manual .

akoako oook k

* 10 LINES OF 128 BYTES

5874 =

14.5 CYCLES / BYTE

1@ LINES OF 128 BYTES

*
* INCREMENT
* COUNTER
* 24 + 16*8 = 152
* 16 + 16*8 = 144
* 18
18
324/32 = 18.125

t has been more than three years

since Sir Clive Sinclair last released

a machine into the computer

market, but judging by the time |

have spent using the Z88, the
first product released by his new
company, Cambridge Computer, he has
lost none of his skill or entrepreneurial
genius.

Yet again, Sir Clive has ignored what
most people consider to be the industry
standard, MS-DOS; by producing a
machine which at best can be described
as idiosyncratic. As if to make some
obvious concession, Cambridge
Computer has produced some MS-DOS
software which allows Z88 users to send
and receive Wordstar and Lotus files, but
this does not really make up for the lack of
software choice.

As with everything else that Sir Clive
has been responsible for producing, the
Z88 is available in a stunning range of
colours; black, black or black. This
obvious stylistic criticism apart, the desig-
ners of the Z88 have done a good job in
creating a machine which is remarkably
attractive — if you like yuppiesque matt
black.

Having paid your money (more than
likely a couple of months prior to the
machine arriving on your doorstep) it is
somewhat disappointing to receive
nothing more than a small briefcase-like
package, but once you have extricated
the machine, the disappointment soon
turns into amazement.

Inside this briefcase is the Z88,
together with a large and, at first glance,
comprehensive-looking guide to the
machine. However much you have reac
about the machine, little will have
prepared you to actually have it sitting on
your lap. As someone who has used a
wide variety of portables, varying from
the original Kyocera based machines, to
the recent crop of PC-compatibles, the
compactness of the Z88 is a revelation.

With a surface area slightly larger than
an A4 pad, and weighing less than a hard
back book, the Z88 really is the epitome of
portability, and even when it is stored in
its case — advisable if you want the
machine to last — it will comfortably fit in
all but the briefest briefcase.

Compact

In simple terms, the reason Cambridge
Computer has managed to produce such
a compact package is the lack of any
normal form of removable storage. When
the first rumours of the Z88 started to
ieak, most people believed Sir Clive
would stick with microdrives, as used in
the QL. Like the Psion Organizer,
however, the Z88 takes a different
approach — RAM and EPROM.

At the front of the Z88 are three expan-
sion slots that can take an assortment of
RAM and EPROM cartridges. In everyday
use, the RAM is both simple and reliable,
but if any really important information is
created, it becomes necessary to store it
more permanently, and that is where the
EPROM comes in. Using a built in
EPROM blower, the Z88 can copy files
and information from the RAM cartridges
straight to EPROM.

This is where one of the first limitations
of the Z88 becomes apparent. Although
the Z88 can accept anything up to three
cartridges, the four HP7 batteries used to
power the machine cannot produce
enough juice for extended use if the three
cartridges are used. Currently, in this Z88,
| have 128K of RAM and a 128K EPROM
as well, and although the batteries can be
made to last well, copying files to
EPROM reduces their life considerably.

Dead Flesh

As with most of the other products that
Sir Clive Sinclair has been responsible for,
the keyboard of the Z88 has come in for
some heavy criticism, and at first glance
you can see why. Made out of the familiar
‘dead flesh’ rubber that was used on the
early Spectrum computers, it feels life-
less to a first-time user. After a few hours
use, however, the keyboard grows on
you, and | have found it quite refreshing,
especially after many hours tapping away
on various PCs. The screen too is a great
improvement on some of the recent
backlit screens | have used. Showing a
total of eight lines (which is surprisingly
ample), it is one of the new generation of
‘supertwist'’ liquid crystal displays, in this
case produced by the printer giant Epson.

Although the hardware forms the base
of the Z88, it is the software that will
make or break the machine. Developed
in-house, the main part of the software is
a generic word processor-cum-spread-
sheet-cum-databae called Pipedream:

Cuite how they have managed to
produce such a complete piece of
software is a mystery, but having used all
the sections, it is apparent that the
software is both well written and, so far,
bug free. In use, itis clear that rather than
three separate pieces of software, Pipe-
dream is a spreadsheet that has been
adapted to be a word processor.

For most of the time this does not
prove too much of a problem. As a
processor of words, Pipedream allows
the user to justify text, set line spacing,
set headers and footers, as well as most
features Wordstar users will have grown
accustomed to. It is when editing previ-
ously written documents that the
annoying little idiosyncrasies of Piped-
ream become apparent. Deleting back-
wards from one line to another is impossi-
ble, and cursor movement is confusing to
say the least. f

If you can be satisfied with the word
processing side of Pipedream, then the
spreadsheet will come as a revelation.
Using a similar format and entering
system to such firm favourites as Lotus
1-2-3 and Visicalc, the almost immediate
copying and loading from the Z88's RAM
means that long and complex tables car
be altered and maintained in minutes
rather than hours.

Achievement

Where Pipedream excels is for users
who combine text and tables to form
reports. Unlike programs such as
Symphony, data can be changed and
recalculated even when it is surrounded
by text. Another useful feature for this
kind of editing is the novel page map at
the left of the screen, which gives the
user an accurate picture of how the
finished page will be printed.

As well as Pipedream, the Z88 comes
complete with a diary, a clock, a calendar.
a communications package, file import’
export program, as well as an impres-
sively complete version of BBC Basic and
a stand alone filing system. All these
programs operate with the Z88's unusual
menu system which uses the MENU key

to pull on to the screen a variety of.

options.

Technically the Z88 is a real achieve-
ment for Sir Clive Sinclair. He has, just as
he said he would, released the first truly
portable computer that anyone could
carry and use constructively. There
remain some reservations, however.

The machine is three months late, and
so far mine has crashed four times, twice!
without any warning whatsoever. The
exclusion of a parallel port is unlikely to
help sell the Z88, even if porting data to
other machines is possible (something 1;
would contest having tried unsuccess-:
fully on numerous occasions). i

Finally, and perhaps most importantly,
the Z88 is to be sold at £290, much more.
than was originally suggested and, |
would suggest, too much to achieve the
kind of sales the machine deserves. Yet
again, Clive Sinclair has had a great idea,
but also yet again, the execution has lefta
lot to be desired.

I have been iecting ali GAME HACKS

soris of pokes BIS, Maps, an
other informa for the Manic Miner iBugbyte} Type when
Spectrum and Ti GS. I have ‘game if running 52317
finally gotten und to ge Bs.
it sorted cui, want is Software Praj.liyre
some of it on. ‘PEURITER. A boot

Most of it is h peciru wiii appe at bottem of screen
but the eg@6e co c be Then hold down 3 and press a
easy to find. I mor combination of keys to jump to
INTO- On Soe, Oe hack rooms. {5-1} (9-13) (9-1234)
Gr mave 5S € af a Just iiri t Fn ompileite ist
contact m 5. Rd., RRL AEE Bet en :

Telkwa, B.C. Vad exe. I am Martianoids =Merge loader and
always locking far more hacks. add POKE 48525,127
— POKE 42812,0: POKE 42315,2
FOKE 23509,1892 at each key before the RAND USR statement.

E 23592,2255 Sceroti . Space Harrier =In trainee mode,
ye re in pragram: setect Keys as
= eee eas FrEe normal and when you return to
— main menu type CHEATSFBRSS and
ing Border the game starts with you
iny cibie,
Restaris — PETE
= p -+4 *
— Nemesis =Merge loader and enter
ae its ae a — — 55 POKE 51479,1 and
FOKE 23755,0 : ENTER : EN you're indestructible.
tifs tine
Line @. Sweeva's Worid =POKE 33219,0
POKE 22756,0 SPRIE LIne g into “SAE Ce: lives.
ine in}. ,
RAND USR 3ž52 =Scratis whole Highlander =Kneel down and keep
page up one tine. =Kne
ar a4 a high block, so that
Se et ie pat em: he Loses energy when
maeir O screen. i te í
sScratts whole p he hits, not you.
Base UR to tine 2 I have quite a iot of pokes,
a E hints. and some maps of games
oe eet eee. and adventures. If you want heip
sListings disap with anything or if you have any
es hints to share, please contact |
FOKE 23755,0 =Listings reappear. me, If there is enough interest
— = VAERE I wili try ta make a catumn for
FOKE 23550,5% CRER the newsletter.

Silicon Mtn. Computers
C-12, Mtn. Stn. Group Box
Nelson, BC VIL 2J3
Canada

2>x—TERM EXCHANGE TAKES OFF!

The Z2X-TERM EXCHANGE, a “not-quite-a-SIG" within the framework of
the NICOLSON NIGHTIME NETWORK, is off the ground and gaining
altitude. So far. we have several never-before-seen programs for
the 2X81 in the Files section. Included at this writing are:
BLOCKBUSTER and INVADERS (WRX16 high-res); MICRO-MOUSE GOES
DEBUGGING (a really cute quasi-hi-res program); "ROCK CRUSH" and
*DAN‘S REVENGE" Cquasi-hi-res shareware from two blokes in
Scotland); "“TRUCKIN’® and "BATTLESHIP" (neat low-res stuff!)

Also online are RLE pictures, and info files on how to decode
them; info files on expanding the usefulness of ZX-TERM*80; and
files of general interest.

Much more is to become available in the near future, including
programs from Pleasantrees Programming in Arizona, some more of my
own programs and tutorial ramblings.

As time goes on, we might become a "real" SIG. If you guys REALLY
show that you want it, I’m considering setting up a dedicated CP/M
board (perhaps even with hard disk)? to "support your habits."
However, it depends on you.

The NNN is on-line every night from 1800-0900, and all day Sunday.
It uses 8/N/1, and can be reached at (604) 354-4666 (a 3, two 4's,
and the "number of the beast).

Many files can be downloaded and used with nothing more than 16K
of RAM, and "Mini-Xmodem." Larger files may require 64K (with Mi*
decoding? and ZX-TERM*80. WRX16 high-res stuff will of course
require a suitable static RAM to run.

You don’t have ZX-TERM*80 yet? Well, do I have a deal for you.
Only $24.95 of your hard-earned Canuck-bucks will bring you this
miracle of modern technology. (We'll even accept US dollars at
par!)

Drop in and say "hi!"

Fred Nachbaur

With the Z88 released to some acclaim, Sir Clive Sinclair
is back in business, plotting the future of computer
technology. As usual, he is miles ahead of everyone else.

But is he too far ahead for his own good?

Sir Clive Sinclair is indisputably the most plans to implement file transfer to

colourful and influential figure on the
British microcomputing scene. Martin environments? =

Banks and Simon Craven caught up with "Yes, a Macintosh package is under
him at the official launch of the Z88 laptop way, and as for others we'll look at them
computer. The Z88 is interesting in itself, in the light of demand from our

but Sir Clive also gave away some customers. It's worth remembering that
fascinating details of how he sees the there will be a healthy market for

future of Cambridge Computer, the third-party manufacturers of add-on
pocket telephone and the potentially software and hardware for the Z88. A
revolutionary wafer-scale integration third-party communications pack for Z88
project. to BBC micro is one example which
Why is there no modem fitted tothe should appear shortly.”

288? We've heard that someone is working

“It's coming along as an accessory, but on an Amstrad-Z88 pack, too.
the problem is that it needs to be a “Which is fine. That's the sort of thing
different unit for each country we sellin. we are happy to encourage.”

In this country there is also a delay forBT One possible application for the Z88 is
approval.” data capture. Do you have a suitable
What about comms software? bar-code reader?

“There is some comms software “Not ourselves, but that's certainly the
already built into the machine. That gives sort of product which we envisage being
you enough to log on to something like plugged into it. A lot of that sort of thing
Telecom Gold. If anything else is needed will come from other companies — we
in the future it can always be loaded into have no wish to monopolise the market.”
the machine where it will stay resident The machine uses EPROM cartridges
even when the Z88 is switched off.” for mass storage. With conventional
Earlier computers from the Sinclair disks one advantage you have is that
design stable have sometimes been you can carry out a selective random-
accused of poor reliability, and access purge to clear out your
Cambridge Computer's publicity unwanted files. With the Z88 cartridge
effort is placing heavy emphasis on you can only erase the whole content
the quality of design and construction at once.
in the Z88. Has there been a significant “Yes, but that’s nota problem because
return rate on the computers delivered you use it in a different way. You take an
so far? EPROM with alot of stuff on it, put it into

“No we hada few back, about six, with the machine, dump the whole lot to
a keyboard problem in the early stages, RAM, delete the files you don’t want,
but that’s all the trouble we've had. wipe the cartridge and save it all out
You have announced distribution again. The wipe process only takes about
deals with Dixons and Comet. Will 12 seconds, which is pretty fast for
these be the only outlets now thatyou EpROM. When you get up toa megabyte
have stopped mail order sales? on a cartridge we are going to use

“No. The general trade will be served PROMs which you can’t erase yourself,
by other distributors. | can’t name anyat though you can send them back to us to
the moment, but we are in negotiation be wiped. The reason is that we expect
with several and expect to appointat people to use the megabyte cartridge like
least two.” a hard disk. It is essentially for long-term
Cambridge Computer sells software archival use. People don't generally
to transfer files between the Z88 to the delete things from their hard disks — they
IBM PC. At the moment, Wordstar and just dump things to them.”

Lotus 1-2-3 are supported. Are there 1 0 k

other software or hardware

Will you limit the future capacity of the
cartridges to 1MB? If not, how will you
manage the directory problem?

“We don't need to limit the capacity.
The current 1MB cartridges have a 1MB
direct addressing range. There's no
reason why you shouldn't have more
than 1MB in there, but as with a hard
disk, you will have to tell the machine
which page you want to look at.”
Cambridge Computer is at present a
single-product company. Will there be
other Cambridge Computer systems
in the future?

“Very much so. Not other portables,
because we see the Z88 as being
sufficient for as far into the future as we
can see, because it's flexibléand you can
add things to it. But we are looking at the
computer field in general to see what
else we can do.”

Cambridge Computer seems to havea
very different character from Sinclair
Research, in its target user base at
least. The intended user of this
machine is very different from the
buyer of a ZX80, ZX81 or Spectrum.

“In away. yes. The original idea behind
the ZX80, 81 and Spectrum series was to
get into the idea of teaching people about
computers and what they could do. We
realised the games thing would happen,
but we never expécted it to take over,
which it did. We didn’t plan that at all. It
became the dominant side of the
business, but what we had always |
wanted to do was get into the business

of making usable computers which
would help people. That's what we have
done with the Z88, so in that respect it is
an expression of where Sinclair Research
was going. Now we've reorganised
ourselves so that Sinclair Research is
purely a holding and research
organisation and Cambridge Computer
actually handles the products.”
How much of the concept of the
Pandora project is carried over to the
Z88?

“Well, the basic philosophy is very
similar, but when it came to the design
we Started from scratch with a clean
sheet of paper. It was lucky we had that
opportunity, because we were running
up against a brick wall at that point. The
display technology on Pandora was a flat
screen similar in concept to the pocket
television, with an optical system to blow
it up to a decent size. it was very good,
but it couldn't quite give us a display 80
characters wide. We went up to about 66

characters but couldn't do any better. We
were just lucky that the supertwist LCD
technology came along when it did.”

Is it possible that some of that
abortive flat screen technology might
spill over into a third version of the
pocket television set?

“No, we have no plans in that direction
at the moment. I'd like to do anew
pocket TV but the fact is that it has not
proved to be a big market.”

Why do you think that is?

“It's very odd. Pocket radios have
always been big sellers, but pocket TVs
have not. | can only suggest that
watching television is not something that
people do on the move.”

Maybe because it’s more interactive,
diverts more of your attention?

“Possibly, but it certainly isn’t a big

_ Market.”

What are your hopes for your

telephone project?

“Shaye Communications has a 25 per
cent stake in that project, and the product
should be out next year. It’s a dramatic
breakthrough, but that’s about all | can
say at the moment.”

We understand that the real success

of that product will be dependent on

the siting of terminal stations at
places like railway stations, airports
and the like.

“That's one way of going, but you can
use it through a black box which
connects it to your office switchboard, or
through a different black box which
connects it to cellular radio. you have a
little pocket phone, smaller than your
little dictation machine there, weighing
about three ounces. you are then free to
buy the interfacing black boxes. One
connects to the office PABX. Everyone in
the office has the little handsets and they
can use them just like ordinary
telephones. They can call each other or
dial out of the building without even
thinking about it. You could then have
another black box in your car which
enables you to dial out from there on the
cellular system. You use the same
telephone, without having to think about
where you are and what system you
should use. When you get home you can
keep on using the same phone because
you have a black box in your house. So
wherever you are you use the same
phone in exactly the same way, and it
automatically polls around the available
black boxes to place the call as cheaply as
possible. It's completely user-
transparent.”

How many calls can one of your black
boxes handle at any one time?

“A lot. It's about 100, all time-sliced.”
That’s a good number when you think
of the queues at railway station
telephone boxes. Will it have a _
significant cost advantage over
existing cellular phones?

“The phone itself is considerably
cheaper, but it doesn’t do the same job. If
you bought the cellular black box as well,
the cost would work out about the same
as a conventional unit. There’s no reason
for it to be much cheaper.”

What is the latest news on your
wafer-scale integration project?

“It's going very well. That company,
Anamartic, should be announcing its
Capitalisation soon and we expect to see
products out next year.”

What process are you using?

“The first wafers, the ones due out late
next year, will be CMOS, but we are
working on our own process which
should appear in two to three years’ time.
That will be bipolar technology, which is a
very dramatic change. | worked out some
years ago that you had to go bipolar, and
the world is now starting to realise that.
Bipolar CMOS is starting to appear, but
what it really takes is true bipolar design.
There are fundamenta! theoretical
reasons why bipolar is better. What really
matters is how much voltage you have to
put into a transistor to switch the
capacitors. A bipolar transistor is ten or
twenty times better in that respect.”
How long does the initialisation
process take when the wafer is
powered up? Ivor Catt’s designs back
in 1978 had serial registers, and they
were doing a three-cornered search
for valid memory.

“It’s the same principle. They are
blocks of RAM instead of serial memories
and they do a three-cornered search. It
takes a tiny amount of time to initialise —
less than one second to map out the
wafer. And whereas Ivor's original idea
was to power up the wafer every time
you used it, we don’t do that. We initialise
it once and then it stays live. You could
power up again if you ever had a failure —
there’s a detection process —but we built
in two additional levels of redundancy
over and above the original Catt concept.
There’s an error code correction and a
system whereby you can use a partial
block. If one of the blocks of RAM
doesn’t work completely you can still use
it. It maps the faults and works around
them, just like a disk formatting program.
So the chance of a significant failure is

very low. I've forgotten the mean time
between failures but it’s huge. That's one
reason we're going to sell them. The
speed is terrific, of course, but the
reliability factor is very important.

In the long term are you thinking of
other types of memory, such as
EPROM?

“I don’t know how much thought
Anamartic has given to that, but | am very
much interested in other sorts of
memory. EPROM excites me because it
requires zero power when the computer
is switched off, whereas for the RAM we
have to use battery back-up.”

You have always had an interest in
alternatives to standard media such
as disks, and the idea of a nice
convenient cartridge with ten or
twenty megabytes of capacity is
obviously attractive. .

“Yes, | think solid state has to
dominate. | have never believed that
disks were the best way to go. Foralong
time, of course, they were the only
possible way to go.”

But so far disk technology has always
managed to beat semiconductor
technology. A few years ago bubble
memory was supposed to be the great
disk replacement, but that didn’t
make it.

“So far, yes, but that has changed
now. The Z88 is an example of a machine
which has no need at all for disks. | can’t
mention any names, but one of the big
computer companies has a stake in ~
Anamartic, and the reason is that they are
going to change over from disk to
semiconductor storage.

Is that Tandon?

“I'm not allowed to tell you. But there
is no doubt whatsoever in my mind that
the whole computer world will change
over — not overnight, but it will happen.”
How long do you expect it to take?

“Some years. It depends on need and
on who is doing it, but faster than you
might suppose.”

Presumably this technology has a
bearing on the future of the Z88.

“Sure, it means that eventually we will
be able to have multi-megabyte
Cartridges using only one chip. At the
moment we have six-inch wafers under
development, but they are designed so
that they can be cut down into whatever
size of package we want.”

What is the likely cost of a wafer
memory?

“At first it will be several times the cost
of the equivalent Winchester storage,
but it will decline faster than the per-bit
Cost of the hard disk. Of course, it will

MP LM E RNA at a: ti

HEADER HACKER (PART I)
Bren KOTTER

i became interested in hacking after
SESOBS various roses pubsishead to modify
programmes (particularly Arcade Games)
to give extra Lives, Time, Ammo., Srength
etc. The problem arises when a Basic
Loader iš not given, and one has to break
into the program. This problem resulted
in looking into methods of Software Prot-
ection used to prevent pirating, and Part
II will review some of the most used.
AS I am not a machine code programmer
this will be a fairly elementary review.

All cassette based programs start
with a Basic Loader, and are in machine
code. Therefore it becomes necessary to
to be able to List the header as the new
Pokes are always put into listing just
ahead of the final PRINT USR x, or
RANDOMISE USR x, instruction. Unless
the start is made with LOAD""CODE, try to
MERGE "". If the O.K. report is shown

and the header lists, no problem. How-
ever if the screen is blank along with an
O.K., alter the PAPER colour, (then LIST)
as both PAPER & INK may be the same. I£
this fails, and the screen appears to

AT SILICON MOUNTAIN, WE TAKE GAMES SERIOUSLY!

- Striking high-res graphics -

‘nang', other tricks have been used. If
the header is in Basic, but has been made
invisible by some means, the following
m/c routine may work. RUN the listing,
then SAVE as "hacker"CODE 32994,89.
To use this, LOAD “" CODE, then press
CAPS SHIFT & ENTER together. Then MERGE
"" the program, instead of LOAD"". This
may stop the header and you can LIST it.
Adapted from Spectrum Arcade Handbook,
Issue 8.
10 FOR n=32994 TO 33082: READ a:POKE n,a:
NEXT n

20 DATA 62,63,237,71,237,86,201,62,128,
237,71,237

30 DATA 94,201,127, 32,74,111,110, 32,78,

111,114,116

40 DATA 104,32,56,54,161,1,129,245, 62,
254,219,254

50 DATA 31,56,7,62,191, 219,254, 31, 48,4,
241,255

60 DATA 237,77,42,178,92, 43,249, 43, 43,
34,61,92 IES.

70 DATA 175,50,113,92,205,1,22,205,
110,13,33,59

80 DATA 92,203,158,35,203,238,175,17,
239,128,205,10 l

90 DATA 12,251,195,169,18

- Great Playability — Challenge - Hours of Enjoyment —

BARGAIN PAK #1: (by F. Nachbaur) Includes BLACKJACK
Arcade action, casino fun, and thought-provoking entertainment all on one
inexpensive tape.

Qnly $14.95!

All the games listed in this ad will run on the 2x81, TS1000 or TS1500 with 8K
static RAM and 16K user RAM.

C"VOYAGE OF THE SEAWITCH" requires 32K or more.)

DUNGEON OF YMIR - V3: The Classic adventure game. The author set out ta write
the best qame ever produced for
succeeded. You can’t imagine it until

version. Price: $19.95

ZX computers. The word is in - he has

you’ve played it. Includes Zebra Joystick

» HI-RES CHESS, and INVADERS.

BARGAIN PAK #2: NEW PROGRAMS! (by G. C. Harder) These started out as lo-res
games from magazine listings. G.C. Harder added new features, high-res, and much
more. Includes: “VOYAGE . GF THE SEAWITCH" - great adventuring. "BLOCKBUSTER" -
use cool logic to defuse bombs before detonation. "“SPIROGRAM" - generate
beautiful geometric images; even more flexible than a "real" spirograph! Written
in "Fast floating-point" for speed. All three for $149.95.

_ NO ADDITIONAL- SHIPFING CHARGES
WRITE FOR INFO ON OTHER GREAT HI-RES PROGRAMS

SILICON MOUNTAIN COMPUTERS

C-12 Mtn. Stn. Group Box, Nelson BC VIL 2J3 CANADA

READER PROFILE

Alright, alright. You twisted my rubber arm. So you want to Know how it came about that I got involved (for
better or worse) with "the poorest excuse for a flyspeck computer ever made," as our beloved Zeeper so
affectionately phrases it. Well, like the Dormouse’s, mine is a long and sad tale.

You think we’ve got it roughy eh? Well let me teli you that the ol’ ZX is a dream-come-true if you had any
exposure to mairiframes in the ‘60s. I wrote my first program in Fortran on the O.S.U. mainframe back in ‘65.

It was a simple program, it only did some formula crunching to figure resonance and Q of tuned circuits. But

it took WEEKS to debug. Mase storage in those days was on paper cards, one command per card. It was a real
luxury to use the paper-tape reader to make a somewhat more compact version of my listings. When submitting
a program for running, one was lucky if the hard-copy results came back the same day. One was even luckier
if it actually ran, and didn’t just come back with some obscure error, coded in such a way as to make it
virtually impossible to locate.

Computers? You can Keep ‘em. I can find a square root “the hard way" faster and with less trouble than using
this alleged “miracle of modern technology." Cf course, back then every self-respecting science nerd carried
his 12" slide rule from his belt wherever he went, so if you really needed the arctan of 1.343 while waiting
for the bus, a deft flick of the slipstick would give it to you pretty as you please.

The computer bug finally bit again in 1980, when I scraped together some nickels and dimes to buy Radic
Shack’s (actually Sharp's) first pocket computer. This thing sported a full 1.8K of non-volatile RAM, had a
nifty resident EASIC, and even had a little printer and cassette interface. But talk about slow!

Even so, it wasn’t long before I was doing Fourier Analysis and playing Blackjack with programs I had
written. The Fourier stuff was interesting in that, because of the limited RAM, I had to use the cassette
tape "chaining" option to load in every subroutine as it was needed. It was fully automatic, mind you; it
turned the motor on as required to load the next module. A 200-point, 40 harmonic run took a week.

It was during such a run that someone broke into my house and stole the whole "system." The buggers didn’t
— the decency to run off hard-copy of the current run before taking it. Drat. Guess I'N have to buy
another one.

But wait! What's this? Pop Science has this ad for a real computer for only $1507 Buiit in iK af RAM, and
expandable to a colossal 16K! Machine-code capability too! That's GOT to be too good to be true. Chances
are, itl be a waste of money akin to the plans for “cosmic ion pain field zappers" that have graced the
rag ads for years. But ok; I'll bite. It certainly can’t be one of the more foolish things I’ve ever done.

Or was it? The rest is, as they say, history. Starting with a severe phobia of digital electronics, and the
firm conviction that machine-code is only understandable by math Ph.D’s, I worked my meandering way from
computer illiterate to computer obsessive. Or, I should say, ZX obsessive. Computers? You carı Keep ‘em. I
have yet to find an application that my high-tech doorstappers can’t handle.

One af the least publicised advantages of the 2X (and family) is that it helps to teach the virtue of
patience. If I were to reflect on how many times an abrupt crash has ruined hours of work, I think I’d have
a breakdown. So I don’t think about it. Instead, I pick up whatever pieces might remain, ponder certain
despicably dastardly deeds, but resist the urge to execute them, and try again.

All in all, it’s been a lot of fun. I’ve learned a thing or two, and tried to do my part to prove that real
computing can be done on a machine far less complicated than my photocopier, let alone my CD player. Or even
the average microwave oven.

I still tip my hat to Clive Sinclair for the 2X81. I must admit, though, that I feel he must have simply
lucked out on this one. He hasn't come up with anything significant before or since then, has he? (I meah as
an inventor, not as a comedian.) Timex is another slapstick burlesque. Had they come out with the ‘1500
right off the bat, and given the 2X81 (aka TS1000) the decent burial it so richly deserved, they might still
be in the land of the living. Had they not bastardized the Spectrum beyond recognition, they might even be
making money. Oh, well. It’s their loss.

So, still blissfully unaware of the real computing world, I continue to hack away with my “rubber rinky-
dinks" as one correspondent disparaging called the ‘1500.1 write millions of words per year, explore the
furthest reaches of modern fractal mathematics, write and play complex and sophisticated adventure games,
look at pretty graphics, telecommunicate, even diddle around with hi-res color (8x as good as the 2068, by
the way) on occasion. Computers? You can Keep ‘em. Zeepers, blow it out your IBMs.

Fred Nachbaur Í 3

Reprinted from the May-June/83 issue of SYNC
Timex, Sinclair, and
the Clones
\David H. AhI

At the Winter Consumer Electronics
Show in Las Vegas, there was much fan-
fare surrounding the official introduction
of the Timex/Sinclair 2000. Dan Ross,
Vice-President for Computer Products,
and the entire Timex crew were there as
well as Clive Sinclair and Nigel Searle
from Sinclair Research in Britain. On a
much lower key, a Sinclair clone and a
look-alike that ran Forth were shown by
smaller companies.

We've told you about the 2000 (Sinclair
Spectrum) in previous issues of SYNC, so
before looking at the other new hardware,
let's hear what Dan Ross has to say about
marketing. Today, about 14,000 retail
outlets are carrying the Timex/Sinclair
1000; Dan expects that number to in-
crease to 25,000 or more by the end of
1983. Catalog showrooms, toy chains, and
bookstores are all in Ross's sight, but he
also plans to target other channels of
distribution, most notably schools and
banks.

By June or July, says Ross, several
programs will be instituted between
Timex and different banks. He thinks that
banks will be rushing to give away the
1000 as a premium for opening new
accounts, especially when Timex intro-
duces a $99 modem (expected in the first
quarter of 1983).

Ross feels the modem is important be-
cause banks are very interested in de-

veloping at-home electronic banking ser-
vices, but the terminal cost thus far has
been prohibitive. A computer/modem
combination with a list price of $185 could
change all that.

Like Apple, Atari, and Tandy, Timex
sees the educational market as having a
vast, untapped potential. Our opinion is
that Timex might be underestimating the
amount of software, courseware, and
handholding support that is necessary to
get into the educational market in a major
way. Time will tell.

How many Timex/Sinclair 1000 and
Sinclair ZX81 computers have been sold?
Of course, the number is a moving target,
but as of the end of 1982, our best es-
timate is 600,000 Timex/Sinclair 1000s,
and about the same number of ZX8is,
although only 200,000 of them are in the
United States.

Does that make the Sinclair the best
selling computer in the world? We think
so, and Clive Sinclair and Dan Ross cer-
tainly agree. However, both Commodore
and Texas Instruments also claim to be
number 1 in sales. Commodore people
were telling everyone in sight at CES that
they had produced one million Vic 20's,
while TI people were just saying the
99/4A was the best seller, period. No
matter who you believe, 1983 should
shape up to be a most interesting year.

This year will be interesting for many

The Timex/Sinclair 2000

reasons. First, with Time magazine en-
dorsing the personal computer as
“Machine of the Year,” the home com-
puter gained respectability and urgency
in the minds of millions of consumers.
Second, as more people enter the market
as consumers, volume goes up and prices
come down. But beyond the effect on
prices, more customers mean that manu-
facturers will offer a wider diversity of
peripherals, software, and applications.

In addition to the many new peripherals
and software packages at CES of interest
to Timex and Sinclair owners, two new
computers were announced. The first was
a clone of the Timex/Sinclair 1000 with
the main difference being a “real” key-
board. Well, it doesn’t exactly have a
typewriter keyboard, but rather little rub-
berized “Chiclets.” Dubbed the Futura
8300, it was being shown in the Unisonic
booth.

I spoke with the Chinese designer of
the Futura and asked him if the Basic was
licensed from Sinclair. All of a sudden,
his English seemed to falter, but he quick-
ly recovered, shrugged and asked why it
should be licensed. Why, indeed? I'm not
sure, but it seems to me that it should be.

The Unisonic Futura 8300

I then went to find someone from
Unisonic who could tell me when the
machine might be marketed, how we
could get one for review, and so on. “We
don’t have anyone to deal with the press,”
I was gruffly told. “How should I go about
getting one?” I asked, reminding the
gentleman that we published SYNC and
Creative Computing. “Buy one,” he said
as he walked away to find someone else
to insult. Although Unisonic is a strict
orthodox Jewish company and pre-
sumably its employees have had a fine
upbringing, we have been singularly un-
impressed with their courtesy and product
support in the past. Thus, we do not have
high hopes for the Futura 8300, even at
the suggested retail price of $80.

Another computer which also looked
like a T/S1000 with a real keyboard was
the Jupiter Ace. Unlike the T/S machine,

taken a huge amount of effort to make it
work, but Ivor is marvellous. He is a
classic inventor. Now we have other

“companies coming in, the big companies

who don’t take an interest unless it
works.”
Do you envisage applications for
wafer-scale integration outside the
field of memory?

“| started the whole thing because |

` want that technology for

supercomputers, and that’s what I'm still
interested in. Obviously we will use it for
memory; so will everyone. But that’s not
why I started it and that’s not what
excites me.”

What excites you? The idea of a wafer
full of transputers?

MEMBER PROFILE: Chung Show

Having been brought up on the
tail-end of an old education
systems where electronic
calculators and computers were
forbidden and slide rulers were
the norm⸗ Was very
apprehensive about purchasing
an electronic calculator let
alone purchase a computar. So;
back in 1981, when an ad ina
electronics magazine tried to
comince me to join the
“computer age" by purchasing an

the Jupiter Ace speaks Forth, a powerful “Absolutely. Real array processing. inexpensive. British computer
language that adherents claim is ten times Years ago | was in the States and | for the “common man", I
faster than Basic, four times as compact, realised the future of computing had to pondered a long while before

and much more flexible.

The Jupiter Ace has a Z80A micro-
processor, 3K RAM, a 40-key keyboard
with auto repeat, graphics resolution of

be parallel processing. | had one of those
brainstorms we all have and thought
‘Christ, we'll never do it! The pin-out
problem alone will kill it’. Wafer scale

SOOO OOOO OKA

—*

*

—*

finally giving in.

I received my ZX-81
form.”

in kit
I assembled it during a

— hal % — —— integration is fundamental. it’s not an lona weekend. I was mad about
intetaal peaked a cassette — ae option — it's a necessity. So | came back — * aw otek er
an expansion port for memory and other and started it, got hold of Ivor Catt and aries e aa

peripherals.

The machine will be marketed by Data-
Assette, 56 South 3rd St., Oxford, PA
19363, (800) 523-2909.

Yes, there was a great deal more of
interest at CES and we came home from
the show with armloads of literature,
decks of business cards, and scores of
promises to send products for review.
You'll see it all on these pages.

Jo OSS SSO SOOO OOOO OOOO OOO OK

cont from pg 11.

started the whole process.”
So that’s the long term goal for
Sinclair Research and Cambridge
Computer. A Cray on a desktop.
“Absolutely. That's the real stepping-
stone.”
Martin Banks adds:
The thing that strikes me about Sir Clive
is that he can actually see far too clearly,
far too far into the future. And he’s dead
right. Disk technology is getting
horrifyingly anachronistic. The
mechanical technology of a hard disk
drive is fearsome. | take my hat off to disk
drive manufacturers that they can make it

went back to my slide ruler. I
eventually gave it away to a
relative a year later.

After I had learned a bit about
microprocessing units in the
Services my attention returned
to Zk-S1 when I found and
purchased a T/S 1008 with a box
full of software and books for
the sum of $58. Since; I’ve
have purchased another from BUY
& SELL. I also have a Zx
Spectrum + that I had purchased
in Britains but, until I
receive a

i :
work at all, never mind reliably. But it's j corrected ULA chips

always have a big advantage in
performance — wafer scale memory is
about a thousand times faster in terms of
access time.”

Everyone else in the semiconductor
industry seems to have discarded the
idea of wafer scale integration. What
have you got that they haven't?

“The difference is that they have hada
hardware approach to the problem. They
were trying to use fuses, or antifuses, to
link the bits. That's a desperately bad
idea, because if you make one slip you've
had it. Ivor Catt, and him alone, decided
to do it with software, using a soft
interconnect and the three-cornered
search to see which bits are usable. It’s

going to be around for years and years
because there are so many people using
it. He's absolutely right, but it wouldn't
surprise me if it takes until the turn of the
century for him to be proved right. |
would like to see it happen much sooner,
because non-mechanical mass-storage
has to be the way to go.

OoOoOoOoo
OO

SRO OOK OOOO OOOO OOO OOOO OOOO OOOO OOO OOK OOROKOF

it’s not functioning.

I am interested in programming,

but my main interest is in
using the TS 1060 as a
controller. At present, I am
trying to use one of the

machines to control a motor for

a telescope so I can track
stars for some
astrophotography. I tried

interfacing my old slide ruler,
but logarithmic time does nat
track stars to well.

ES.

THE ULTIMATE ARPFPHAN?S

Fred Nachbaur

How would you like a dirt-cheap computer system that has a real
Keyboard, high-res (€256*192) or very-hiqh-res ¢(640*256) screen
display, runs fast, has oodles of memory (typically 256K),
hardware options up the qazoo, and firmly yet gracefully thumbs
its nose at Bio Blue?

What if this computer had TONS of public-domain software and
shareware available for it? What if there were literally volumes
of support literature available? i
Well, if you’re a true-blue ZX fancier with a greater—than-averaqge
touch of the Scotsman (or Bavarian), then read on. Such computers
are almost literally there for the taking!

I’m , talking about CP/M, the most popular operating system
available before IBM decided to force its own Cin my opinion far
inferior) “standard” for disk operating systems. In the aftermath
of IBM’s idea of a Brave New World, literally thousands of
beautiful CP/M machines have acquired the status of “computer
orphan."

I just picked up an Epson QX-10, with built-in dual 5-1/4" drives,
high-res monochrome monitor, detachable 105-Key Keyboard, 256K of
RAM, the most current version of CP/M, VALDOCS software, plus ZIP
D-BASE, MULTIPLAN, and several other titles. The machine has a
direct plua to Centronics printers, an RS232C connector, even a
light-pen input. I could go on and on.

The software, especially VALDOCS, is simply phenomenal. I have
NEVER used a better word-processor, and I’ve used quite a few. But
it’s much more; it has a built-in spreadsheet, communications
package (which will even answer the phone for you, so could be
used as a rudimentary BBS), appointment/calendar program, and file
manager.

This whole package cost several thousand dollars a few short years
ago (1983, to be precise). I’m embarrassed to tell you what I paid
for it, like-new, in the original packaging; suffice it to say
that my cost was well under 10% of the original retail price.

So if you're ready to advance to a "real" computer, one with all
the modern conveniences, but still find $1000 a little steep for a
box of pretty beige plastic that comes with nothing more than the
Klunky MS-DOS, consider CP/M. Look around. The bargains are there
for those wise enough to see them!

16

ZX81/TSXXXX OUT—-BOARD REAL-TIME CLOCK
by Tim Stoddard

The following is a description of the Real-Time clock
section of the D.A.M. board article which appeared in Time
Designs Magazine ( March/April ‘87 page 23 ). The board
features a full-function real-time clock with battery back-up
and is mappable into eight I/O port blocks. See attached
schematic diagram.

8255 PPI

The 8255 PPI is used to interface the MSM5832 clock to
the Z80 buss. This is needed because the MSM5832 is too slow
of a device to attach directly to the Z80 buss.

The 8255 has three ports called "A", "B", and "C". The
module uses port "A" to xfer data to the MSMS5832, port "B" to
select the proper register in the MSM5832, and port "C" to
toggle the control signals to the MSM5832. These three ports
are accessed by writing or reading one of four registers in
the 8255. Port "C" is also bit-addressable by writing a
special code via the CONTROL register. This allows us to
toggle a single control signal to the MSM5832 without having
to "remember" what state the other three MSM5832 control
signals were. The following is the table showing which
registers control what in the 8255:

REGISTER PORT
(0) A
1 B
2 — G
— 3 CONTROL

The first action that should occure in your BASIC or
machine language routine is to initialize the 68255 by
clearing port. "C" and then setting up the 8255 to write, or
read the MSM5832 clock chip. This is done via register 3; the
CONTROL register. To write to the MSMS832 you need to

initialize the 8255 so that ports A,B, and C are all “output”.

ports. This is done by writing the control register in the
8255 with an 80nHex ( 128oec 2. To read the MSM5832 we'll need
to initialize the 8255 so that port A is an input port and
ports B, and C are output ports. This is done by writing the
CONTROL register in the 8255 with a 90nex ( 1449ec ). A
one-time action after powering up the computer is to
initialize the 8255 ( to read or write the MSMS5832) then
“clear” port "C" by writing a ZERO to register 2. This resets
the active-high control signals HOLD, RD, and WR to the
MSMS832, and causes the MSM5832's CS to go active via the
inverter.

The 74HC138 is used to select a "block" of I/O ports to
be used with the clock module. The HEX address of the ports
always end in 3, 7, B, or F. So if the 74HC138 is strapped

17

3

for "block five", the I/O ports would be 53, 57, 5B, and SF
for 8255 registers 0, i, 2, and 3, respectively. The
following table summerizes the relationships:

8255 8255 reg” TIMEX NSM5832 FUNCTION
PORT ADDRESS HEX DEC
A 0 53 83 DATA port
B a 57 87 REGISTER ADDRESS port
Cc 2 SB 91 CONTROL port
CNT a SF 95 0 — — erate —

The above table assumed a "block" of 5. You can re-strap
to any of the eight blocks to avoid conflict with other
devices attached to your computer.

We use a special function in the 8255 that allows us to
change single bits in port "C" rather than "remembering" what
all the bits should be in port "C". This is done by writting
a special code via the 8255's CONTROL port SF,.<. The syntax
of this code is as follows:

D7 D6 DS D4 D3 D2 D1 DO

(0) 0 (0) (0) X x x SR

SET
RESET

N 7 1
\ SELECTED /
BIE £

o
"o

0090 = 0
001 = 1
etc.

MSM5832 CLOCK CHIP

The following table describes the various registers in
the MSMO832 and their limits:

REGISTER COUNTER DATA I/0 LIMITS NOTES
ADDRESS D3 D2 D1 DO
0 S1 x X X X O= 9 1
1 - S10 x X-X 0 = 5 1
2 MI1 X X X O°-.9
3 MI10 A-A X 0 —5
4 H1 XxxX 0 = 9
5 H10 + i+ =X -X Or 2 2
6 W X X X 0-6 3
7 D1 X-X X X 0 —=-9
8 D10 t- X X o-3 4
9 MO1 XX Xe X 0—9
A M010 X Ost
B YR1 x xX XxX 0-9
C YR10 xX X-X X o- 9

KOTES
(1) Register set to zero when written to.

(2) D3=1 for 24hr or D3=0 for 12hr clock
D2=1 for PM or D2=0 for AM

(3) Days from Sunday. Sunday = 0, Monday =1, etc.

(4) D2=1 for leap year.

The following is an example showing how to read the day
of the week from the clock module. Assume the module is
mapped in block #5 ( ports 53, 57, 5B, SF >.

(1) After powering up the computer write a 90,6 to the
8255 CONTROL port, 5SFie. This sets up the module to read the
MSM5832 clock chip.

(2) As a one-time operation clear port "C" in the 8255
by writing a 0 to port 5B,e. This need only be done one time
after powering up.

(3) Write the desired MSM5832 register address to port
"B" of the 8255 by writting a 6 € 6 = day of the week)to port
STi.

(4) Strobe the MSM5832 RD signal active by writting a
OB,s to the 8255's CONTROL port SFie.

(5) Read the day of the week by executing an input
instruction on port 53,6.

(6) Return the MSM5832 RD signal inactive by writting a
OAye to port SFye6.

(7) You can now read any other MSM5832 register by
following steps 3, 4, 5, and 6 using the desired MSN5832
register address in step 3.

To change the day of the week to Saturday (6):

(1) Initialize the 8255 to write the MSM5832 by
writting an 80,e to the 8255's CONTROL port 5Fyi6.

(2) Select the day of the week register in the MSM5832
by writting a 6 to port 57.14.

(3) Latch the new day of the week in the 8255's port A
by writting a 6 ( Saturday) to port S36.

(4) Store this new data in the MSM5832 by toggeling the
WR signal. This is done by writting a ODie to port SFie. Then
imediately follow by writting a OCie to port SFye«.

(5) You can now change any other MSM5832 register by

writting the new register address to port 57,., latching the
new data via port 53,6, and toggling the MSM5832's WR signal
as in step 4.

.. Schematic will be printed next month.

19

VAPORWAR

... From SILICON MOUNTAIN

Now that our SCRAM board is available and off the “vaporware®
lists, we felt a need for new entries. We're presently taking
orders for the following "new" products which definitely will
maybe appear one Gay.

NERD—-WORD

- The word-processor for the compleat idiot. Revolutionary input
routine obsoletes the mouse, joystick, light pen, trackball, and
even the Keyboard! You don’t even have to Know the QUERTY
keyboard! Alphabet and control icons continuously scroll across
the MOJP (Master Control Panel Window). When the desired
character is in the CSF (Cursor Selection Field), press the
button on our OBI (Doorbell Button Interface) Lonly $235.90).

DEBASED

- The file manager of the future! Uses the same input routine as
NERD-WORD. Amazing new sort routine; simply print out your
files, cut them up, and sort by hand (free tutorial included).
Then use our Laser Wand (only $695.87) to read the sorted files
back int

MAI L—PURGE

- interactively links NERD-WORD and DEBASED. Comes with a pair.

of scissors and a glue stick for inserting your datafiles into
text files. Our patented KAMIKAZE routine eliminates the need
€or a DELETE function; when the program figures that you've had

your files tong enough, it assumes that you're tired of them and.

automatically purges them without saving. Even wipes out the
program and gives you an op-art crash=screen! `

B UGS — P UNNY

- The ULTIMATE computer game. You are supplied with 16K of pure
machine-code; however, the bytes are completely scrambled. Your
challenge +s to arrange them into a working program. WE don’t
‘even Know what the final program does! Comes with a packet of
instant coffee, a box of double-stuf Oreos, and a pocket bottle
of Extra-Strength Excedrin. We'll even PAY YOU $10 if you send
us a working copy of the solution!

BUT SERIOUSLY -.---

We DO have several innovative software tities for your ZXx8l,
TS1000 or TS1500. Send two IRC’s for free catalog.

SILICON MOUNTAIN COMPUTERS: C-12, Mtn. Stn. Group Box
Nelson, BC VIL SPI CANADA

VAIN

The Vancouver Sinclair Users Group has been in existence sinc
1982. We are a support group for the owners and users of a
SINCLAIR and TIMEX computers

Pres:- Ken Abramson PH. * (604) 438-7740
V /Pres:- ‘Rusty’ Townsend

Sec:- Harvey Taylor

Treas. & Editor:- Rod Humphreys

Our membership dues are only $15.00/year and may be sent to th
Treasurer:

Rod Humphreys
2006 Highview Place
Port Moody, BC, V3H IN5

Members of VSUG receive a monthly issue of ZXAppeal - ou
newsletter. :

ZXAppeal accepts advertising. Our **PREPAID** rates are:

$20.00 -- full page
$12.00 -- 1/2 page
$8.00 -- 1/4 page

ZXAppeal has a print run of 75 copies per month for members and i
distributed to approx 40 other SINCLAIR User Groups throughou
North America as well as overseas via the NETWORK.

NETWORK correspondence may be directed to the Editor at the abov
address.

All articles appearing in ZXAppeal may be reprinted by other T/
User Groups as long as credit is given to the author and VSUG.